As we hasten towards the cliff edge I am coming to the conclusion that for a lot of people Brexit will comes as a profound shock, not least the mainstream press and in particular the newspapers that have been in the Brexit vanguard before the B word was even thought of. All of the euro myths invented and sensationalised by The Mail and The Sun and The Telegraph will come back to haunt them. Yesterday I posted about how many organisations still don't understand the border problem. The Daily Mail was one I didn't mention.
Yesterday they had a report with some drone pictures of the huge new 27 acre lorry park at Ashford designed to hold 1,700 trucks. The whole thing is couched in terms of an insurance policy just in case, viz:
"Upon completion, the vast site will be used for HMRC customs checks, with an area available as a holding space for up to 2,000 trucks should delays arise for vehicles crossing the Channel. However, it is hoped vehicles will not need to be stored on the land and will be a 'customs checking site' by July."
The Mail still cannot bring themselves to accept that it is a certainty these lorry park will be used from January and that it is a direct consequence of having borders between two countries with the amount of trade that we do with the EU. The report clearly suggests the parks will only be needed in the event of a no deal Brexit:
"There are fears the UK could leave the EU without a free trade deal following the Brexit transition period, which could cause significant delays in vehicles crossing the border.
"It was previously claimed that a failure to strike a Brexit deal by Boris Johnson's October deadline could mean up to 7,000 lorries would be forced to queue up ahead of crossing the Channel."
There are only two possibilities to avoid queues in January. Either there is an implementation period or there is a significant drop in cross-channel traffic. The first would be a humiliation for the government but would no doubt be accompanied by claims that we needed a tough stance to get a good deal. The second would see food shortages and massive drop in exports.
Meanwhile The Sun blares out: EU to ban UK from using e-gates next year
EU to ban UK from using e-gates next year https://t.co/FO8r5izr84
— The Sun (@TheSun) October 23, 2020
Someone on Twitter has pointed out that the headline could also have been: UK to end freedom of movement. We want to leave the club but enjoy all the facilities.
Back at The Daily Mail, City editor Alex Brummer has been in somewhat sheepish mood this week. He is a Brexiteer who said in 2016 that The City would "not only survive financially outside Europe, but thrive."
Now he's not so sure, on Wednesday he claimed London had been "betrayed" and he confessed that he had been 'naïve' to think otherwise. On Thursday he said the government has “left behind one of the country’s most important earners” adding, “the City is being asked to enter the Brexit era with one arm tied behind its back”
The City has been betrayed alright - by him and his newspaper. Will we ever get an apology? No, the costs will be too high for any high profile Brexiteer to ever admit it has been a terrible mistake.
Yesterday his colleague James Salmon had a report about City firms moving £1 trillion of assets out of the UK. Again, it's seems to be written on the basis of an insurance policy:
"While painstaking negotiations have continued in Brussels, big City firms have been hedging their bets by shifting assets from London to the continent and setting up subsidiaries in rival financial centres such as Frankfurt, Paris and Dublin."
These banks and financial institutions are not "hedging bets" as The Mail suggests. This is permanent and is again the unavoidable, mechanical, legal consequence of Brexit. It is the other side of the coin to "freedom" from the EU - as are queues at Dover next year, a big reduction in trade and long waits for UK nationals to clear customs and border formalities at EU airports.
Nobody on the remain side ever thought the EU was perfect, but what we did believe is that the upsides far outweighed the downsides. Brexiteers on the other hand ignored all of the upsides (any idea of losing them was just scaremongering) while focusing all their attention on the downsides.
Over the next six months, what Brexit Britain stands to lose will become horribly clear.
